Multi-room facilities such as hotels and cruise ships and similar structures often provide individual safes, and other secure amenities in each guest's personal area, including the guest's room itself. Other secured and/or monitored amenities also may be found in apartment buildings, office complexes, dormitories, office buildings, classrooms and laboratory facilities. For example, all of these facilities may provide electronic door locks which limit access to specific areas only to authorized persons. It is also common practice to equip these amenities with tamper-detection switches. In some instances (e.g., with in-room safes or door locks), the tamper-detection switches help provide guests or users of the amenity with additional guarantees of security by helping to detect whether or not someone has been tampering with the electronics of the amenity, such as a safe, for the purpose of gaining access to the amenity at a later time. In other instances, the tamper-detection switches are used to detect when an amenity has been accessed by a guest or user, such as a mini-bar, as this information may be required for billing purposes. In such instances, someone may have incentive to tamper with the electronics in an attempt to avoid detection of his or her use of the amenity. In any event, tamper-detection switches are well known and commonly used in a number of areas, even outside the multi-room facility markets.
Normally, the amenities are off-line and are battery powered. Typically, the tamper function of a tamper-detection switch does not work if the power to the safe or door lock is removed. In such case, someone may gain access to and tamper with the electronics without detection. For example, in the case of a safe, the electronics are positioned on the inside of the door of the safe, behind a cover or panel. When the cover is removed, thereby exposing the electronics, a tamper switch will normally be activated. However, if power is terminated before removing the cover, such as by removing the power supply (e.g., batteries) first, the tamper switch may not be activated. The electronics may then be altered and the cover returned to its normal position, without activation of the tamper switch. Power may then be restored without detection of the tampering.
Another shortcoming of many tamper-detection switches is the occurrence of false positive conditions. Specifically, some tamper-detection switches will become activated if the power supply is interrupted, such as when the batteries are removed or replaced. This often results in the device protected by the tamper switch entering into a “service mode.” While in “service mode” the device protected by the tamper-detection switch is often rendered inoperable and made unavailable unless and until the tamper-detection switch is reset, for example, with a service device. In a large multi-room facility, a long amount of time may pass before an authorized person, such as a system administrator, is able to reset a tamper-detection switch that is in “service mode.” This is undesirable to guests of the multi-room facility who want immediate access to and continuous normal operation of the amenity or device protected by the tamper-detection switch.
Another problem with many existing tamper-detection switches is that the repeated occurrence of false positive conditions (e.g., due to routine battery replacement) can result in improper treatment of situations where the actual tamper may have occurred. In other words, if false positive conditions are ignored, there is a risk that true positive conditions will also be ignored.
The following table summarizes the current state of the art with respect to tamper detection.
Tamper Conclusion aboutPower/switchtamper switchbatteriesactivatedactivationReportedAction1PresentYesCover has beenTamperEnterremovedactivatedServicemode2PresentNoCover has not beenNothingNoneremoved3RemovedYesNo conclusion can bePower wasNonemaderemoved4RemovedNoNo conclusion can bePower wasNonemaderemoved
What is needed is a tamper-detection switch that overcomes the above-noted shortcomings.